Washing dishes, cutting vegetables, cleaning garbage, brooming n mopping the floor…. Wow..Yeaaah! Yes, I am ready!
Very few male Indian egos would respond like that for an opportunity/imposition like that. 😉
When I grew up, kitchen for me was a place where I would get to EAT. Little did I know what all went through till the food found itself on the plates. Nor was I exposed to the grievances of those who would clean up and get the kitchen ready for my next arrival.
Well, but destiny had decided otherwise. When I was 26 years old, admittedly with a yukky feeling, I found myself, inside a huge vessel, stinking of leftover gravy of mixed vegetables.
This was when I had gone to attend an Advance Meditation Program, at the ashram in Bangalore, which was the headquarters of the Art of Living, an NGO founded by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. Quite astonishingly, within no time even before I could realize, used plates, utensils, and filthy kitchen floors had become my best friends. As I would clean them up, I could feel in a very subtle way, something inside me getting fine tuned. It was refining my consciousness.
The resistances of the body were getting dropped. The mind had become relishing the depths of the present moment. Concepts and notions were being broken, and like and dislikes in the intellect were being transcended. Past impressions and patterns in the memory were being erased, my ego was getting totally shattered. I was dissolving in myself. I had heard Sri Sri mentioning in one of his discourses of the Patanjali Yog Sutra, abiding by the self is yoga. Perhaps, it was Yoga in the true sense, that I was experiencing.
For a detailed feature of this kitchen, watch India Mega Kitchens, today Saturday 31st December, 2016, 8 pm on National Geographic.
Check the below tweet for a trailer.
National Geographic has made a documentary on kitchen at @BangaloreAshram being one of the mega kitchens in India feeding thousands daily. https://t.co/2lfqmz7Cg9
— Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (@SriSri) December 29, 2016
Cheers,
Saleel Pulekar
You articulate SO well.. Enjoy reading your posts.. Keep writing..